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By Faye James
US news reporter
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The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has ordered nine companies to provide information about how they set prices for consumers and, in some cases, determine pay for gig workers.
The companies named are Delta Air Lines, United Airlines, JetBlue, Lyft, Uber, DoorDash, Instacart, Target and Walmart. The FTC wants to study whether prices or compensation for the same product or service vary between people based on personal data or other factors, including participation in loyalty programs.
The orders are part of a market study under Section 6(b) of the FTC Act. The commission says this authority allows it to conduct broad studies without a specific law enforcement purpose. The announcement is an information-gathering inquiry, not a finding that any of the nine companies broke the law.
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Newsweek has requested comment from the FTC and the nine companies named in the inquiry via email outside office hours*.*
Which Companies Did the FTC Name?
The FTC named three airlines: Delta, United and JetBlue; two ride-share companies: Lyft and Uber; two food-delivery companies: DoorDash and Instacart; and two retailers: Target and Walmart.
The inquiry covers more than the price customers see. For ride-share and delivery services, the FTC is also examining how companies calculate worker compensation. The agency says offers to drivers may vary according to opaque formulas, potentially involving information such as phone usage or a driver’s history of accepting previous offers.
The FTC has asked the companies to document the inputs, tools and procedures they use to set or adjust consumer prices and worker compensation. Each company has 45 days from receiving its order to respond. The commission says it can ask a federal court to compel compliance if a company fails to provide the required information.
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What Is Personalized Pricing?
Personalized pricing generally means setting different prices for different customers based on information about them or their behavior. That could include online activity, purchase history or loyalty-program participation.
It is distinct from some familiar forms of price variation. Prices can change because of a sale, time of day, location, demand or the cost of providing a service. A price difference alone does not establish that a company used an individual customer’s personal data to set a price specifically for them.
The FTC’s inquiry is intended to examine what companies actually use when pricing products and services and whether similar information affects what gig workers are offered for a job. The FTC says its previous 2024 study examined intermediary companies that provide pricing tools rather than the businesses that set prices. The new orders go directly to companies that may use those tools or practices.
What Consumer Reports Found in Its Instacart Tests
Instacart is one of the companies receiving an FTC order. Separately, Consumer Reports, Groundwork Collaborative and More Perfect Union tested the prices shoppers saw on Instacart. Their findings offer background on price variation on the platform, but they do not establish that the other eight companies named by the FTC use personalized pricing.
The groups recruited 437 volunteers to shop for identical grocery baskets through Instacart at the same time. After reviewing the submissions, researchers included 193 in their analysis. They found that about three-quarters of the grocery items in their tests appeared at multiple prices, with some prices differing by as much as 23 percent.
Basket totals varied by an average of about 7 percent. The researchers also tested additional retailers and reported price experiments on Instacart at Albertsons, Costco, Kroger and Sprouts Farmers Market, in addition to Safeway and Target.
The study found price variation, but it did not establish that individual personal or demographic data caused the differences. Instacart said customers were randomly assigned to test groups and described the tests as “limited, short-term, and randomized.” The company has said it does not use personal, demographic or individual behavioral information to set online item prices.
Consumer Reports reported that Instacart said 10 retail partners were using its Eversight pricing tools at the time of the investigation, but the company did not identify them. Target told the publication it had no business relationship with Instacart and did not directly share pricing information with the platform.
Instacart said its Target pricing tests had ended. In an update published after the investigation, Consumer Reports said Instacart had stopped offering the technology that allowed different prices for the same groceries at the same time at Target and Costco.
The researchers also surveyed 2,240 U.S. adults in September 2025. Among respondents who had used Instacart in the previous year, 72 percent said they did not want the company to charge different users different prices for any reason, Consumer Reports reported. Columbia Business School adjunct professor Len Sherman, whose research examines algorithmic pricing, described consumers’ exposure to such systems as “an enormous and growing social experiment.”
What Happens Next
The companies’ responses may help the FTC assess what factors are used in pricing and pay decisions. The orders themselves do not resolve whether a particular practice is unfair or unlawful, and the commission has not announced findings against any of the nine companies.
The FTC said the study will gather information directly from the businesses after its earlier work focused on pricing-tool intermediaries. The commission has not set out a public timetable for releasing findings.
Contact Newsweek editors on this story: Rebecca Flood and Emma Lee-Sang
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